Google's nonprofit arm will announce on Tuesday that it has contributed $2 million to the De Novo Group, a Berkeley organization working to deliver affordable broadband Internet access to rural communities, starting in Northern California.

The broad mission of the organization's Celerate project is "to get the next billion people online," said Yahel Ben-David, president of De Novo. Or at least get existing users onto faster and cheaper Internet connections, which studies link to improved economic development and educational achievement.

The project, a collaboration between UC Berkeley and Stanford University researchers, is now seeking applications from interested communities in the region. The service won't be free, but should be cheaper than and superior to existing options, Ben-David said.

The Israeli doctoral student at Berkeley previously founded AirJaldi, which delivers Internet access to rural areas of India. He had hoped the organization would move millions of people in the developing world online, but only tens of thousands have so far.

"In terms of the social impact that drives me and I was hoping to achieve, it's a drop in the ocean," he said. "We're looking at 4 or 5 billion people who aren't connected."

The challenge has been offering such service at an affordable level while remaining economically self-sustaining. It simply costs a lot to build and maintain the infrastructure required to reach homes spaced out across wide areas.

For the new project, the money from Google.org will be used to develop an open-source wireless technology that promises to be cheaper and easier to roll out and manage. The approach is based on "software-designed networking," an increasingly popular approach in large data centers.

Software's bigger role

In simple terms, it allows software to take over more of the heavy lifting from traditional networking hardware. Expensive, full-feature routers and switches can be replaced with cheaper devices throughout the network.

In addition to providing Internet service, the initial projects in Northern California will serve as a test bed for the technology. The researchers hope to apply what they learn here to rural communities throughout the nation and developing world, as they figure out how to offer wireless broadband at lower costs with less technical support. Because it's an open-source project, other companies and researchers will also be able to take advantage of whatever they achieve.

De Novo is technically a "social enterprise," an organization that aims to make enough money to be self-sufficient, rather than reliant on fundraising. The amount it charges for services here will be reinvested into further research and networks in poorer regions, Ben-David said.

"The profits don't go into anyone's pockets," he said. "The profits will allow us to serve more rural communities."

Closing tech gap

Other organizations are working to bridge the gaping technology divide. In August, Facebook teamed up with Ericsson, Nokia, Qualcomm and others to announce a plan to affordably connect more people over mobile devices by "bringing down the underlying costs of delivering data, and using less data by building more efficient apps."

In June, Google kicked off Project Loon, a plan to log on the developing world through a series of wirelessly connected balloons circling the globe.

These approaches have, not surprisingly, been criticized as self-serving for businesses that benefit financially as more people use their online services. It's a fair point to consider. But there's also ample evidence that faster and better Internet access empowers people, providing economic opportunities, educational resources, communications tools and a means of organizing under oppressive regimes.

"Universal access is a big challenge," wrote Jennifer Haroon, access principal at Google, in a blog post that will go live on Tuesday. "Today, just one in three people worldwide are connected to the Internet. This is another step forward in developing new technologies to connect more people in more parts of the world."

Interested communities can contact the De Novo Group at: Celer ate.DeNovoGroup.Org/